Sometimes, Chasing Money Leads to Getting Fired

We live in a strange new world where college athletes have all the power.

Remember when old-timers would laugh at the idea of college athletes getting paid? I argued in my college public speaking class for this to happen, and my professor — well past retirement age — commended my speech while also asking, “isn’t the free degree enough?”

No, sir. It’s not.

Now we have the NIL — Name, Image, and Likeness. Players can finally get paid. Hooray!

With this has come the transfer portal — another new freedom where athletes can change schools whenever they’d like. Instead of sticking it out with one program, players can leave to chase a better opportunity — or more money.

The spring transfer portal opens this week, and it’s the first chance football players have to change schools since the season ended. Surely, we will see a lot of movement.

But there has been some movement even prior to the portal opening. Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava was reportedly sniffing out deals with bigger programs, hoping to cash in on his first full season as a starter. He showcased this by skipping a practice, college football’s version of an NFL training camp holdout.

Before getting the chance to leave, however, the Tennessee program decided to part ways with him.

It’s hard to know whether Iamaleava was actually planning on leaving — or merely looking for leverage to get more out of Tennessee. But the Volunteers weren’t looking to play that game.

It was his first season, after all, but Iamaleava wasn’t necessarily lights out for Tennessee last season. The team finished 10-2 and made the College Football Playoff as the ninth-best team in the country.

The Volunteers lost 42-17 to Ohio State, who went on to win the whole thing. Iamaleava finished 14-31 for 104 yards passing. He did score the teams only two touchdowns of the evening, both on the ground.

Despite the overall success as a team, Iamaleava only led the Vols’ offense to 9th in the SEC. Whether he was in the position to demand more money or not is up for interpretation, but Tennessee was clearly not interesting in having that discussion.

The remaining Tennessee QBs have a combined 57 passing attempts in their college career, and they will likely snoop around in the portal to try to find a replacement for Iamaleava.

Iamaleava may very well find himself in a better spot next season, but it’s also possible that he just threw away his best opportunity because the people around him — namely, his father — felt that he deserved more.

Last season, a similar thing happened with UNLV quarterback Matthew Sluka. Sluka’s family felt he deserved more money after three games in which he “led” the Rebels to a 3-0 record via a 44% completion rate. He is now with James Madison and is not even promised the starting job.

The portal’s reopening will answer whether this was a wise decision for Iamaleava and his family. But as of now, he’s looking like someone that didn’t have as much leverage as he thought.